Brazil Sugar at Ports Rises 27% as Ships Head to Iran, Black Sea

By Isis Almeida -
Dec 20, 2012

The amount of sugar awaiting loading
at ports in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, climbed 27
percent over the past week as vessels head to the Black Sea and
Iran, according to Williams Servicos Maritimos Ltda.

About 1.28 million metric tons of the sweetener was waiting
to be loaded onto ships at the ports of Recife, Suape, Maceio,
Paranagua and Santos, the country’s biggest, data e-mailed
yesterday from the Recife, Brazil-based shipping agency showed.
That compared with 1 million tons a week earlier.

About 12 percent, or 153,832 tons, of all the sweetener
awaiting loading was heading to the Black Sea region, the data
showed. Another 150,000 tons were bound to Iran and 139,000 tons
to Malaysia, according to the shipping agency. Vessels scheduled
to sail to Indonesia, set to be the world’s largest raw sugar
importer in 2012-13, would carry 111,315 tons.

Many sugar importing countries have been re-building
inventories as surpluses emerged after the shortages that
resulted in prices rising to a 30-year high in February 2011,
according to Lausanne, Switzerland-based researcher Kingsman SA,
owned by McGraw-Hill Cos. The global sugar surplus will be 7.8
million tons in the 2012-13 season started in October,
Czarnikow Group Ltd. said yesterday.

“Restocking has exceeded many analysts’ estimations,
particularly in Egypt, Iran, East Africa and of course in
China,” Kingsman said in a report e-mailed Dec. 17.

White, or refined, sugar for March delivery slid 0.8
percent to $513.50 a ton by 9:42 a.m. on NYSE Liffe in London.
Raw sugar for March delivery fell 0.9 percent to 19.06 cents a
pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York.